Last Tuesday, within the framework of a meeting held at the National Council for Health and Safety at Work (Conassat), The business chambers asked the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS) for a new extension to decree 381/021, which requires companies with between 50 and 150 employees to offer occupational health and safety services. The portfolio scrapped the proposal and moved on.
It is that the decree had already had more than one extension. Even the original wording (Decree 127/014) dates back to 2014. Then, in 2019 and 2020, the situation of companies and the pandemic led to new delays that culminated this Monday, May 2, with the entry into force of the decree that contemplates companies that have between 50 and 150 workers in their workforce. According to businessmen Some 2,000 companies belong to this group.
The new delay requested by businessmen is due, according to their referents, to a practical reason that prevents its implementation. This was referred to by the representative of the Chamber of Industries (CIU) in Conassat, Raúl Damonte, who, in dialogue with The Observerassured: “There are no occupational doctors available to be able to carry out a prevention system”.
The representative of the industrialists affirmed that there are currently 43 occupational doctors with a qualifying degree and another 50 who are pursuing a postgraduate degree in this specialization.
“How are you going to be able to serve all the companies with such an insignificant number of qualified professionals?” Damonte wondered.
From the Chamber of Commerce and Services of Uruguay (CNCS) the concern goes in the same direction. “The Executive Branch advances on this issue without having the conditions, we estimate that companies will have difficulties to implement these health and safety services at work,” they assured The Observer sources of this business association.
Along the same lines, the CIU delegate recalled that when the obligation is extended to companies with more than five employees – whose validity begins on the 1st November– the problem will become even more acute since within this universe there are some 20,000 companies.
For businessmen, this is a priority issue, but their position is supported by the fact that the system is not mature to implement a reform of this magnitude. As an example of this, Damonte pointed out that, since 2007, all companies must have a tripartite area of health and safety cooperation. In this regard, he pointed out that of the 180 groups and subgroups that exist according to his determination in the Salary Councils, only 23 today have these commissions formed. “If I can’t get a company to form a tripartite commission, how am I going to install a health prevention service for them?”he asked himself.
For the CNCS, the implementation of this regulation is “a somewhat perverse issue for companies that are not going to be able to comply with the precept of the decree and that can expose them to administrative sanctions, beyond also having an impact on the eventual criminal liability law. business”.
For his part, Damonte believed that this is because Preventive management in matters of health and safety has not been culturally installed, and to this is added, in his opinion, that the General Labor Inspectorate does not have the resources to fully control the regulations.
“We are wanting to go at a cruising speed and we are in a fitito”, commented the representative of the industrialists.
“As the Chamber of Industries we are not going to put any obstacle to the promotion of health and safety, it is a priority objective, but we are skeptical of the practical application because when the companies get ready to install their prevention services they are going to find that they don’t have the doctors,” reflected Damonte and pointed out: “One thing is the voluntarism of wanting to comply and another is the reality that we can do it. Someone is going to have to take charge when the company wants to comply and cannot. It is a question of going out to sanction olympically”.
From the Chamber of Commerce they estimated that although they are aware that specific inspections will not be carried out on this subject, being the current law any inspection can refer to these issues and, in the end, expose the company to a difficulty.
A possible solution
The regulations provide that those who carry out the controls in the companies are professionals specialized in occupational medicine, which is why the decree is so difficult for employers to put into practice. “The problem is that the number of labor doctors is down and this shortage is going to lead to high costs for these professionals,” said sources from the Chamber of Commerce.
From the business chambers it was proposed that this vision be expanded and that other health professionals could carry out the task. However, according to Damonte, this did not prosper. The Department of Occupational Health “made an exception for those who were studying postgraduate studies, but we couldn’t even get that because it depends on the Ministry of Public Health,” the representative of the industrialists pointed out.
The costs
Coping with the cost of attending to what is said in the decree is also a problem faced by businessmen. According to Damont, the health and safety of people are “priority issues and no one can oppose that” but, when it comes to putting it into practice, the problems are obvious. “As much as you can comply with the decree by making a six-monthly visit, it is impossible for the doctor to do everything that the decree says on that day: risk assessment, a diagnosis of how to work, a prevention plan, follow-up of health of all workers; that is absolutely impossible. On one day every six months I don’t even know where the company’s bathrooms are,” estimated the CIU representative at Conassat.
Meanwhile, from the CNCS they assured that The provision adds additional costs to companies and increases the gap with the informal sector of the economy.
In the same sense, they indicated that although it is an issue that has been discussed for many years with the Ministry, the conditions are not yet in place for companies to apply it as they should. “There was no increase in the number of labor doctors, it was not possible for the University to somehow enable other specialties that could be involved in the matter, there was no awareness campaign in this regard. Today we are in a bind, the current norm and difficulties in implementing health and safety services”.
In order to inform its members, The CCSU is planning seminars to disseminate this information to raise awareness and analyze a practical way to comply with the provisions of the decree.
